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Ben Jonson and the Classical School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

“The words, classical and romantic, although, like many-other critical expressions, sometimes abused by those who have understood them vaguely or too absolutely, yet define two real tendencies in the history of art and literature. The ‘classic’ comes to us out of the cool and quiet of other times, as the measure of what a long experience has shown will at least never displease us. And in the classical literature of Greece and Rome, as in the classics of the last century, the essentially classical element is that quality of order in beauty, which they possess, indeed, to a pre-eminent degree. It is the addition of strangeness to beauty, that constitutes the romantic character in art; and the desire of beauty being a fixed element in every artistic organisation, it is the addition of curiosity to this desire of beauty that constitutes the romantic temper.”

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1898

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